


The Blue Lion

by ErikaWilliams



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: An attempt at rationalizing Kare's absence from The Force Awakens, And taking a different direction at the conclusio, By crossing it over with Voltron, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 19:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14003463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErikaWilliams/pseuds/ErikaWilliams
Summary: She gave it her best effort, destroying six of their fighters, but she was still just one pilot.  One of them took out her left wing, and her X-wing spiraled out of control, down through the atmosphere.  She remembered her X-Wing skimming across the surface of the water, then starting to sink and then nothing.





	The Blue Lion

The last thing Karé remembered, she had been engaged in a dog fight with a small handful of First Order ships. It was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission in the Outer Rim, far above a blue planet. No risk. Just take some readings to see if the planet would be suitable for a new underwater base. Not that they had the resources for it, but General Organa liked to keep her options open. It was a remote planet in a lonely system and was marked on all galactic maps as uninhabited. The water would have to be heavily filtered to be drinkable, and there were no other valuable resources. So there was no reason to expect the First Order to be interested in such a planet. They should have known better. The main goal of the First Order was to conquer, even if they gained nothing from their new territory.

 

The exit from hyperspace had been uneventful. She set her X-Wing into orbit, and had her astromech start to collect data from the planet below. Other members of Black Squadron might have brought something to do, but she was content to watch the stars. Watching the stars may have very well saved her life. She saw the flash of movement as enemy ships exited hyperspace and flung herself into action before her radar had even detected the danger. She couldn’t retreat back to the base without a clear jump, and back up would not be coming. She didn’t want them tracing her signal back to the base and having them find the entire Resistance either.

 

She had no choice but to try to take down as many fighters as she could to make a safe jump. Her astromech chirped a question at her.

 

“Keep scanning,” she informed it as she barrel rolled to avoid a collision with an enemy fighter. “Maybe we can still get some useful information back to the General.”

 

She gave it her best effort, destroying six of their fighters, but she was still just one pilot. One of them took out her left wing, and her X-wing spiraled out of control, down through the atmosphere. She remembered her X-Wing skimming across the surface of the water, then starting to sink and then nothing.

 

When she came to, her X-Wing had settled at the bottom of the murky ocean. A few lights were still operational, but they didn’t illuminate more than a few meters surrounding her. Not that there was much to see. Her astromech chirped an inquiry at her.

 

“I’m fine,” she told it. Or at least as fine as she could be, stuck at the bottom of an ocean with little hope of rescue. On the bright side, nothing seemed to be broken, and she was still breathing whatever little oxygen she had left. There was no way her X-Wing was making it out of the water, let alone off the planet. And it didn’t seem likely that the Resistance would get there before her oxygen ran out. Not when her comms were down. The way she saw it, she had two choices. She could give up and die in her X-Wing. Or she could leave the X-Wing behind and take her chances in the vast ocean. Just because the planet was officially listed as uninhabited didn’t meant there wasn’t something there she could use to make her escape. Especially since the First Order troopers would assume that she was dead or would be dead soon.

 

She hit the emergency eject button on her seat and was propelled into the water, her astromech whirling along behind her. She cut herself free from the seat belt and watched as it sank back to the bottom, settling into the sediment next to her X-Wing. Anything she might be able to use would be below her, so she picked a direction at random and started swimming, using the light from her astromech to see. Maybe a working ship had been abandoned here at some point.

 

Her astromech propelled along behind her, chirping questions about her health and well being. None of which was going to matter if she couldn’t find a way off of this planet. The astromech told her communications with Resistance headquarters was still inoperable. They all knew the risks when they had signed on. They all knew there was a chance one of them would be caught alone, no hope of rescue.

 

As she swam along, she couldn’t fight the feeling that something was watching her. Perhaps more than one something.

 

“Who’s there?” she asked, drawing short and putting her hand on the handle to her utility knife. She would prefer not to fight underwater if she could avoid it, but she wasn’t going to go down easily either.

 

A clicking sound started to come through the water, seemingly from all directions at once. She spun around in the water, trying to pinpoint the source, and her astromech moved closer to her with a nervous whistle.

 

A dozen or so human sized lifeforms glided into the circle of light produced by her astromech. So much for the planet being uninhabited. They came in a variety of colors from a pale yellow to a fuchsia to the green of D’Qar and every other color in between. They all ended in the same horizontal fin, had three gills on each side of their necks, and their eyes were large with colored irises and no eyelids. They carried bundles of bio-luminescent algae cupped in what would have been hands on a humanoid lifeform.

 

“Sorry, my ship crashed on your planet,” she offered. Given that no one knew they were there, they probably didn’t get many visitors. She may very well be the first human they saw, and she would rather have them on the side of the Resistance.

 

The native life forms clicked something back at her. Of course they didn’t speak Basic. She doubted her astromech would be able to translate for her. One of them floated towards her, offering her a clump of the algae. She accepted it in cupped hands, but she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it. She hoped she wouldn’t offend them. The group started to disperse, but the brightest one tilted its head in a universal gesture that meant she was to follow them. It beat floating around aimlessly until she ran out of oxygen. She swam after the lead native, her astromech whirling along behind her. It beeped at her to remind her that her oxygen reserves were low.

 

“I know,” she whispered back, but right now her best bet was to follow the natives and hope they had something to either help her breathe or get her off this planet.

 

They lead her into a series of caverns where they would occasionally pass by other life forms that would look at her in interest. The walls were painted with a glow that looked like it may have come from the algae. The patterns varied from wall to wall, but there was one image that kept repeated. A lion, bathed in the same blue light as everything else. She started to wonder if she should worry about giant underwater lions. At least it would be a quick death if nothing else. More of the natives joined the group, following after her astromech with questioning trills. The other ones that had been with her from the start answered back, and the ones that were following her seemed to grow more excited, clacking faster and in higher tones.

 

The tunnel they were following opened up into a wide cavern, and seated in the middle of it was a large, blue, mechanical lion. At least it didn’t look like it was going to eat her. The leader of the group pointed between her and the lion, trilling something very quickly. She supposed they wanted her to do something with it. They glided out of the cavern one by one, and as they took their algae away, the darkness revealed the drawings on the wall. There was an X shaped object falling from outer space, and a bipedal figure emerging from the wreckage. The figure found the lion, and the lion opened its mouth. The figure swam inside, and in the final image, the lion was breaking free from the water and was floating through the stars instead. The lion was a ship, and if she was lucky, it would still work.

 

She had gotten there just in time too. It was starting to get more difficult to breathe. She swam to the lion’s head, looking for some sort of entrance. There didn’t seem to be any lever or button or anything to open it. But the figure had very clearly been depicted going into the lion’s mouth. She swam around the lion, looking for any other entrance. There had to be some way inside; she didn’t come this far just to die here. It was almost impossible to breathe now, and she was starting to feel woozy.

 

She used the last of her energy to swim back up to the lion’s nose. She let the algae fall from her hands and drift slowly to the cavern floor. She didn’t have the strength to speak, but she lifted both her hands to place on the lion’s nose.

 

‘ _I need to get back to my friends,’_ she thought to it as strongly as she possibly could. She didn’t want to let them down. They were all counting on her to get this information back to the base. She could picture them all so clearly, all the good moments, the bad ones, every mission accomplished, every mission failed, every drink they had ever shared together. General Organa. Snap. Jess. Poe. _‘My friends.’_

 

The lights in the lion’s eyes flickered to life, and she could feel the water pulling past her feet as its mouth hinged open. It was barely wide enough for her astromech to fit through. The mouth shut quickly behind them, and the water started to drain out. She fell to her knees in the airlock, wrenching her helmet off and sucking in oxygen that had been trapped for who knew how long. At least she was alive, and if this thing still worked enough to let her in, she might be able to get home. Or at least out into space where she could possibly be rescued.

 

The astromech started chirping statistics at her, the current oxygen levels, their increased odds of survival, and everything it could not determine about the lion, like who had built it, where it had come from, what sort of fuel it ran on.

 

“We’ll worry about that once we’re home,” she told the droid as she pushed herself to her feet. A panel lit up in front of her, and she made her way unsteadily towards it. She placed her hand on it and the door whooshed open to reveal a slick cockpit unlike anything she had seen on even the most sophisticated fighters. The panels lit up in a row as she approached the pilot’s chair. It was like the lion was calling to her, beckoning her in, asking her to fly it. Her astromech whirled around behind her, exploring the cockpit. She sat down in the chair, running her hands over the controls, getting a feel for them. It was like the lion was inside her head, showing her what to do. Her astromech tweeted that it had opened secure communications with the Resistance base.

 

“Thank the Force you’re alright, Karé. We’ve had some trouble of our own and couldn’t search for you.”

 

“General Organa, I’m coming home. And I have a new weapon that the First Order won’t see coming,” she said as the lion sprang to life under her fingers.


End file.
